


And There Are Storms We Cannot Weather

by mimiplaysgames



Category: Kingdom Hearts (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Eventual Smut, F/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Slow Burn, these characters have too many names
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-04
Updated: 2021-01-13
Packaged: 2021-02-23 03:06:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23471419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mimiplaysgames/pseuds/mimiplaysgames
Summary: If Light won’t give Aqua her family back, she’ll use Darkness to free them instead.There’s just one terrible problem: him.A Terranort x Anti-Aqua fic.
Relationships: Anti-Aqua/Terranort, Aqua/Terra (Kingdom Hearts)
Comments: 24
Kudos: 63





	1. Laced With Nitroglycerine

**Author's Note:**

> Happy TWO-YEAR fic anniversary to me!! I’m releasing this a week ahead of the big day, I was just too excited to keep it to myself. This is such a rarepair (strangely? WHYYYY how come no one's interested???) and it’s exhilarating and liberating to get on something different! But it's also intimidating, I don't know why I signed up for this. I posted a sneak peak of this during Terraqua Week and have deleted it since then. I'm relieved that the real chapter is finally out. <33
> 
> I'll share my entire playlist for this fic. First chapter's title is named after Panic! at the Disco's "There's a Good Reason These Tables Are Numbered Honey, You Just Haven't Thought of It Yet." This is essentially Terranort's cocky theme song if he ever had one. Don't mind me, I love the idea of him in a top hat and pin-stripe suit.

If she asks anyone in the world whether she exists, they’d say no - they don’t remember her, after all. They don’t even know why she disappeared in the first place, nor do they want to.

At least, no one _today_ remembers her. She led a whole life a long time ago, and she spent twelve years recounting those memories like they were printed in a book, word for word. Each one of her loved ones has a text of their own, and if she had her way, she’d have them all on a shelf along with hers, together.

But there are empty spots on her shelf now. One is dead.

Another is sleeping, and she can’t retrieve him without the right key, unless she risks losing her mind.

The last one is unaccounted for.

So she traces her steps like she’s reading backwards, and watches people from places they don’t notice: within the cracks in between cobblestone, where they step on her; by the dumpster, where they abandon waste all over her, never realizing they’re burying her; under the storm drain, where they don’t bother to look; inside of closets, where they’re too preoccupied to peek.

After hours of eavesdropping useless conversation, she decides staying in Radiant Garden isn’t worth her trouble. She leaves, heading nowhere until she’s distant enough to wonder where she belongs. 

Nowhere is a wasteland, with only a graveyard. And a man.

When the man sees her coming, he’s delighted to see her again, the way a child imagines a demon would be: lips curled, showing both rows of teeth, and a hungry glare where she’s the feast.

He looks the same, but he doesn’t, golden eyes ambered and deep which pierce through her. His hair is whiter than the sun - there’s no denying his presence, even yards away in the middle of an unmarked Keyblade burial site.

"All worlds begin in darkness, and all so end. The heart is no different - such is its nature. In the end, every heart returns to the darkness whence it came."

These are his first words to her, rich and smooth like the hum of a distant earthquake.

His glee cackles, an indication that he is no different from the very last moment she's seen him and that he has changed in every single way imaginable.

“I fell into darkness for you,” she says, her voice icy.

“Come again?”

She doesn’t lend a second for thought. He will not play dumb today. He will take responsibility.

Gliding across the sand, Master Aqua whips out a Keyblade - tacky blue slamming against ornate silver, her ugly Keyblade bouncing off of his as he knocks her back. 

He sneers when he glances at her weapon. “Interesting choice for plunder.”

She grunts. She shrieks. She won’t give him a chance to talk (who cares what she stole?). Aqua slams her Keyblade against his, again and again and again. He’s going to take responsibility for leaving her behind. She will make it hurt.

He parries, sliding his blade up against hers to throw her off balance. Then he steps forward, and disappears in a puff of smoke. Pops back up, too close for comfort and erasing the space between them.

Close enough to grab her. Enough to take a faint whiff of cologne every time he takes a massive swing of his heavy Keyblade.

She dodges, floats, kicks dirt in his face - anything to break the air between them but still he comes charging at her, chest open for a strike and yet he gets too near to allow her a clear shot.

Like he knows she wants to. He knows what his weaknesses are and leaving his body exposed isn’t one of them. 

Damn him.

They trade blows, metal to metal in beats and uppercuts, always blocked, clanking away and making enough noise to wake the dead. 

Then without warning, he lurches back to keep his distance, strutting her in circles like he’s the predator. 

If that’s the case, then he truly cannot grasp what he’s dealing with.

“Following ghosts from your past, are you?” he says, keeping his Keyblade flexed. “No, I am mistaken. You walk among them.”

“You’re not who I’m looking for.”

“On the contrary,” he coos, “I am.”

Digging into his pocket, he pulls out a metal and glass trinket, dipped in a color bolder than the earth beneath his feet. 

"Give it back," she growls, as quiet and collected as a feline stalking prey.

The warm-orange Wayfinder dangling in display catches the sun when he wiggles it, before he clasps the entire thing in his large hand. He shoves it deep into his pocket like he's making a show out of taking something precious away from her.

“It is mine,” he says with a smile as sarcastic as a snarl.

Part of her should have known. The Realm of Darkness is not the only monster with teeth, and the moment she freed herself left her exposed to all that is hungry in the outside world.

When she steps forward, he steps back, his grin brimming like he’s excited. She throws herself against him for another hit. 

He replies by playing coy, using switch and bait tactics to avoid every one of her attacks until she tires out. She's smart enough to realize it but she's too angry to care, telling her body that it can finally rest when he’s stopped breathing.

A lurch back when she lunges, a swerve when she's too close - he blends in and out of darkness to put distance between them just so she wastes her time catching up. He’s amused, beckoning her to come near with a finger. _Come_ , is what he’s saying when he does this, _I’m over here_. 

It's only when she starts getting furious, when darkness starts smoking off her skin, that he finally loses interest in taunting her. 

She's used to attacks that stun; she's dodged and blocked against them all her life, but his have an extra kick, an extra surge of that desperate need to be stronger, faster, better, bigger.

Power is seductive and he's addicted to the girth of his muscles, into the way he slams his Keyblade onto hers, in the way his shoulders flex and tense with gusto when he pushes hard enough to make her stumble, in his prowess with dark magic that allows him to be too fast for his size.

He's a cheater, put simply. He cheats the laws of physics when he teleports, when he launches himself across the field like a bulldozer, when he floats around and mocks how hopelessly she chases him. 

"So unrefined," he says about her flurries and fireworks, her ghosting and her flashy waves of purple. "You are deafening the desires of your heart," he continues like he's giving advice to a boring child, his posture suddenly lax like he has nothing to fear.

"I listen to it." She doesn't. It's abandoned her, silent as a weep when she turns to herself for answers.

"Clearly.”

"Shut up."

It's not like she doesn't know how her heart feels - angry and bitter enough to propel her forward, to make that Keyblade glow darkly and launch fireballs, blinding him until she follows through and meets him face to face, Keyblade to Keyblade, grinding and sparking and trembling. There's enough hatred and misery mixed in their magic to pool darkness together, a mass so dense it could stain stardust with black ink.

"You will do better by paying attention," he smirks, and she wants to punch it out of his face. His eyes scan her own, so deep and slick in gold that it reminds her of what she truly is: the same as him.

She spent many foolish years indulging in fantasies of what she'd make with their bodies once they were both reunited - making war was far from it.

"Give in," he says smoothly, their Keyblades shaking by this point. "Let your heart speak for itself."

She nearly spits at him. How dare he tell her how to do anything?

"Yes." He approves of her reaction, like he's getting off on it.

She’ll make him regret speaking to her like that.

Dropping to her knees and sweeping with a kick, she trips him, disappearing from his line of vision and leaving him stranded with nothing but dead Keyblades. 

Aqua doesn't have much to say with words anymore. Her phantoms would pull their weight with that kind of hard work.

They creep from the Keyblades, stalking him until they finish their lap and vanish. Meant to be disorienting, they're a message, a filter for her pain so that someone out there knows. So that someone _listens_ because dammit, she's been talking to herself for too many years.

"You left me to rot alone--"

"I waited so long for you to come get me--"

"I only wanted to go home--"

"I don't know what I did all this for--"

"Did you not care about me enough?"

“Traitor…”

"You will drown with me--"

But the bastard is not intimidated. He strides, barely giving them much of a glance as he rolls his shoulders and stretches his neck. He's not moved by her words when he _should be_.

So she slithers, comes right behind him for a direct hit but he's suave and self-assured, blocking her with the force of a boulder.

It's hard to say what catches his attention, what with her shrieking when she misses such an easy target. His eyes drink her face like he's reading her, down her ink-stained arms to her pauldron and ripped sleeves, like he's undressing them.

"What a wasted opportunity," is all he has to say.

He counters - three grounded steps forward with furious swings before a horrendous slam to the ground, darkness lapping at her face and tossing her backward. She stumbles over her feet, her still-foreign Keyblade forsaking her grip.

Aqua spits dry sand out of her mouth; this place is out of her element. He stands in her way, proud and reserved, brushing hair out of his face. Seeing him do that makes her blood boil and her mood miserable.

"It is not a wasted effort, however," he says, towering her, enjoying how he's looking down on a woman on her knees, clutching her chest and gasping for breaths. "What power would you hold if you simply-"

"What do you care?"

"I can offer you a better existence," he says, one hand at his waist, his Keyblade not fading away in the other. "Something with more class than a beggar in the desert."

"Who says I'm begging?"

"You are a commodity, a great asset."

“For what?” She scoffs. “To be a Seeker of Darkness? Summon Kingdom Hearts? None of that is my problem.” Looking him in the eye, even from the ground, makes her feel tall. “I’d rather swallow acid than stand next to you.”

He's smug. "Your heart is weaker than I expected, fleeing the inevitable like a wounded creature."

"It is not weak," she says, emphasizing the sharpness of that last word with a tisk.

She realizes she’s good at this - pretending to know what she’s about even though she wonders if she's truly gone apathetic. 

What she wants right now is to scratch that smile off his face. "Neither is Terra's."

"Terra?" he asks like he has forgotten who that is. He searches the horizon, his lips curling with captivation when he remembers a game he's won. "Terra yearns for my confidence."

Whatever ego-rubbing he's feeding off of, it emanates in clouds of smoke licking the skin of his fingers. "Terra desired strength.” He holds a fist in the air, flexing the forearm. “Witness how powerful he is now. You can have the same, whatever you desire if you learn to control it."

She scoffs, rolls her eyes.

"You know nothing of the darkness,” he says.

Nothing? No. “I _am_ darkness.”

She screams. She knows plenty, years' worth. Master Aqua hates darkness. Master Aqua reeks of it.

They come, hundreds of Heartless in reply, desperately crawling over each other like they will each die if they're too slow.

She hears them, trickling like raindrops... _help help help help help_.

At first, he's proud, waving his arm in grandeur like he’s announcing their arrival. He’s expecting they're here to be used as his example. 

Yet he's the one insinuating she knew nothing. What a fool.

It's delicious to see him hesitate when they don't answer him.

Aqua laughs, twisted enough to remind her he's not the only one who's changed. "They're mine," she informs him.

With her horde, she's finally mutable, melting into their group when they save her, ebbing with their movements.

Until the man with Terra’s face is surrounded by a tornado of monsters. Until they are face to face again, and he's shaking to push her off of his Keyblade.

Her claw grips the armor on his left arm and he braces himself as she scratches the metal.

“Smile at me like you used to,” she commands, bringing her face closer to feel his breath.

He doesn’t obey. His teeth are locked in a snarl, his eyes occasionally darting to see if his blind spots are in danger - not in fear, but in fury. 

Refusing her is the wrong answer. "What I want with all my heart is to take you back," she tells him with savor in her voice. "I swear, no matter where you are, I will be close. I will make sure you are never too far away from me. I will fix you."

He throws a mean glare before he knocks her off and teleports out of the eye of the storm, forcing her to open her Heartless barrier open and chase after him. 

Now he gets serious. He slams the ground with his Keyblade, and the dirt under him ripple like the deep sea in the middle of night. From there, he floats, casting a spell, a summon - a Guardian of sorts - and the colors start weaving shadows.

Aqua and her Heartless have a heart-to-heart link. She doesn’t need to say anything for them to know what she wants. They leave her, twisting in a tidal wave with the intent to crash into him directly while she deals with his new threat on her own.

The shadows underneath her feet converge and slither. They are cold and slimy, the touch of something lurking underwater brushing against her legs.

Bursting out of the ground, it grabs her by the leg and thrashes her around like a toy. The momentum of it makes her dizzy, and she limps in its hold. 

She shivers at the sight.

Empty yellow eyes, but angrier. Mouth taped by bandages like it’s injured. An empty shell in the middle of its chest, like it feels less than a regular Heartless. It’s huge and broadchested, and the first thing that comes to mind is the exact moment when she first met this creature. It hurt.

It hurt her. 

Disappearing from its grip in a puff of smoke, Aqua comes at it from above, Keyblade in hand. 

Her Heartless know to circle back away and pummel into the beast from behind. It takes a direct barrage of her grunts and strikes with her Keyblade - and her very kicks - to its face, until she’s too pissed off to have mercy and she starts coming at it with her worst blasts and explosions. 

She’s found the man’s weakness - this creature. It raises its hands to cover its face from another one of her surging powerballs when the man throws himself in between, blocking with a barrier. Juggling both her and the tidal wave, he knocks out her attacks with large shockwaves while commanding the Guardian to deal with the Heartless - blast by violent blast, creep by unnerving creep. 

The Guardian hides and stalks her Heartless, targeting the ones in the middle: the ones less aggressive and are only there to fill numbers. The lost. The confused. The children. 

Each time it leaps from the ground and takes a hard strike, Heartless are ticked off, lost to nothingness forever in just one shot. 

Aqua gasps.

Every Heartless vanquished is a sting somewhere, like a knotted string pulled from the surface of her skin until it cuts off her circulation. Then it snaps - from her back, her bicep, her face, her own heart, like a slap of rubber. Each and every one.

They’re gone. They’ve suffered enough crawling around the Realm of Darkness, and now this. It’s not fair.

Aqua calls them nearer to her. Together, they are sturdier, and she pets one of her Heartless - the youngest yet the oldest one of the group - to make sure it’s alright. 

Man and beast teleport far enough away to add yards between. His shoulders heave with breath, and he staggers ever so slightly before straightening, like he has to remind himself that there’s something to be proud of. 

The Guardian is dismissed, and the man opens up his arms and bows to her. 

Stalemate. Surrender. It doesn’t matter. All she feels is pain when she promised herself after she left the Realm of Darkness that she’d never feel it again.

“Equal powers,” he says, hiding his defeat in his smile, “equal strengths. Equal truths.” She doubts that. “You are a worthy enough adversary, and yet I’ve bided enough of my time on you.”

He turns over his shoulder.

“Don’t you dare walk away from me,” she spits, her knees shaking. 

It’s uncanny for an enemy to expose his back - traditionally his weakest spot - but he doesn’t consider it. 

“You came here looking for ghosts, were you not?”

“It has nothing to do with you.” 

“The graveyard is the perfect place to find one,” he says, waving his hand to beckon her. “This one is _exactly_ who you’re looking for.”

Whether he’s taunting her or amusing himself, it’s easy to tell but hard to differentiate. 

“You’re lying.”

“Suit yourself.” He continues on his way like he’s talking to himself. “The departed never linger.”

He doesn’t wait for her to catch up. Is he telling the truth? He’s smart, she’ll give him that. Smart and obnoxious, but he can’t afford to boldly take her to a trap.

If he pisses her off, she can finish the job. He’s weak enough now, and he should know this. 

Aqua follows, her Heartless obedient and staying close. She eyes his shoulders, tracing the muscles to his spine. The most vulnerable spot is right at the brain stem. 

He’s so much the same, and yet his stride has more bravado, more of a direction of where to go, like he’s solved all of his problems that plagued him in his young life. 

“Tell me,” he says, glancing over his shoulder, “how did you escape the Dark Realm?”

Aqua doesn’t answer. It’s not his right to know.

“Peculiar,” is all he has to say about her silence.

She stops. “You’re wasting my time-”

“Here.” He gestures with his arm toward a blunder of rocks and boulders that have recently been blown off from a plateau high above. 

Some of the pieces gleam in the harsh sunlight. 

“This…” she hisses. 

Armor. Chunks of it, sliced and abandoned in gold and red, next to a humongous, dull Keyblade laying flat on the ground. A scrap heap instead of a memorial, like all the rest. 

She feels the man watching her as she gapes at the rubble before her.

“A lingering spirit,” he explains, his voice laced with a touch of condescension. “But no more. He spent far too long waiting for repentance until he was depleted of his will.”

She glares at him, golden eyes to golden eyes. His lashes are still luscious and as long as ever, lips slightly chapped as they always are. His lips are the same, but the smile is ugly. It twists, mischievous, like he understands exactly who’s responsible for this mess.

There is so much anger unspoken for but she doesn’t need words to tell him. Her fingers twitch, ready to slash him across the chest... but she’s drawn back by the very armor that needs her, pulling her heart heavily towards the ground. She doesn’t want to look at it but she knows it’s there, waiting for her to take care of it. 

She can’t leave it now.

So she stares, waiting for the man to cower in her sight, refusing to be the first to step down. 

But he notices what she’s trying to hide, and smirks. “You’re bound by his chains.”

His words pump her blood, her heart banging in her ears.

“Be wary of dead weight,” he says softly, his eyebrows pulsing upward. “Tied to your ankles, it will make you sink.”

“I know enough about drowning,” she quietly says. 

He cocks his head, leaning forward. “There are depths you still cannot fathom.” 

She inches closer to him, and can feel his breath on her lips. “We’ll see how hard you struggle to swim,” she whispers. “From now on, every breath you take is a gift from me.”

Something flickers in his eyes, and he smiles to himself. 

Straightening up, he leaves her for silence, taking a step into a portal of darkness until it zips up behind him. 

She hates him. Hates him for that stupid smirk he’s always wearing. Hates how good he is at reading her so easily, for knowing at first glance that she’d stay behind with the rubble when he turned over his shoulder.

She hates him for not letting her grieve her losses in peace. 

The Realm has made good work of numbing her for twelve years, and now she takes a piece of it with her. Any surge of emotion - despair, nostalgia, yearning, wishing, and yes, even love - fades, leaving her stuck between yelling and not caring. Escaping the Realm should have been triumphant - not really deserving of applause, but it should have been the most important moment of her long life.

Standing here, in the midst of this mess, she wonders if waiting has been pointless all along. 

Spurts of Heartless crawl toward the armor - they’re curious, as much as she is shaken by the sight. They’re attracted to what she feels, and because this armor makes her feel _something_ , their interest spikes.

“Don’t touch,” she commands, and they squirm away.

First she takes the helmet under her arm. With the other, she grabs the torso by the neck rim, dragging it behind her. A few yards away is an indent carved into the plateau, right under an outcrop. It’s cooler there because the sun can’t touch it. 

She takes laps, bringing in gauntlets and leg braces, all by herself. Finally, she drags that enormous Keyblade through the dirt, leaving a trail. It’s bigger than she remembers.

In the cave, she assembles the hips upright on the ground, right against the rock. Balances the torso on top. Lays the legs in front. Tries to attach the arms, but they simply fall. 

Then the helmet. Sand spills out of the folds. One of its tall ears is chipped halfway, among other missing bits that tell her it was bashed in the face. Its visor is cracked, the damage running deep when she traces it with her finger. She imagines a pair of deep blue eyes behind the glass, but all she sees in the foggy reflection is her morphed face, gold eyes staring back.

“You broke before I did,” she says spitefully. Then the spite fades away, just like everything else. “I waited a long time for you, and…”

And it looked like it waited a long time for someone, too. 

No matter how many times she wills her Heartless away, they always come back. Like puppies, they want to know what’s next. They just don’t have the words to ask. 

“He’s not too far, don’t worry,” she says. Whether she’s saying it to her Heartless or to the armor, she doesn’t think too hard about it. “But this comes first.”

She balances the helmet on top of the torso, taking extra time with it. The last step is to lean the Keyblade next to the suit, against the rock. She’d rather have it here than among the nameless Keyblades out there - at least this can be a proper shrine, something to tell strangers who walk by that this was assembled with care. That someone who is nameless to them has been loved by those who remember him. 

It’s better than the treatment she’s gotten, and she’s okay with that. 

There’s still so much to fix. 

Years of study have taught her that hearts are connected, and if a friend is in danger, she’d feel it. 

Now that she’s spent enough time fighting with this version of a man, she can replay how his twisted heart beats (morphed, melted? Something is off with the way his heart thuds). 

He’s traveling farther with each second, landing in a world that’s relatively close. He’s not in danger, not in the slightest, but it’s impressive how darkness makes it so much easier to track him than light could ever do for her. This is exactly why Heartless have an upper edge over people, lusting after hearts all the time, and she can almost feel it beating as though she has a hand over his chest.

Stepping out into the sun, Aqua and her pets are the only shadows in a world where nothing can escape its glare. A brighter light creates a darker shadow, and therefore the desert makes her the most powerful being here. Puffs of darkness spit up with dust with every step she takes, and Aqua conjures her own dark portal. It won’t be hard to find him.

There are no rules when dealing with a madman.

But he’s not the only one.


	2. Are You Dead or Are You Sleeping?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What a way to break out of a hiatus: by working on my hardest WIP, amirite? 
> 
> Title of the chapter is named after Modest Mouse's "Satin in a Coffin." If there is ever a theme for this fic, it's that one (at least for the Enemies stage of their relationship). The song deals a lot with anger, it sounds hateful, and it questions how our perception of life is exactly what kills us. It's perfect for my dark OTP.

Darkness is cool to the touch, a flame that numbs the skin with the breeziness of a damp, early morning. As she travels through the corridor, Aqua lets it coax her anticipation to sleep.

When a portal opens to a new world, she steps onto a precipice. The sudden exposure to sunlight and air is like withstanding a slap to the face. And yet... Feeling the sun again after all these years is the giddy reminder that she’s powerful. She’s free, she can go wherever she pleases. But does it have to blind her? It takes longer than usual for her eyes to adjust.

The grass stalks are as tall as she is. Canopies litter the horizon, and jungles claim the mountains beyond, except for the highest peaks. Near her is a lumpy dirt trail, flattened by people spending years traveling on foot. Now, she only has to determine which direction he took.

Darkness works in a network of shadows, always present and always shifting, stretching to giant proportions before shrinking into the tiniest crook. Shadows mold together. They speak and leave echoes behind. 

Aqua concentrates on tracing them. She starts with the way the wind sways the grass stalks, blending their shadows together, until they brace the footsteps of a stalking panther, hiding in a field of flowers. Pollinating from one flower, a bird takes flight. Now it soars, its grounded shadow passing that of a tree’s.

There he is, stepping over a root deep in a thicket. There he is, with his strange, beating heart, rumbling with the flutter of someone facing the edge of a cliff yet with the steady lull of meditation. He takes up too much space in the cavity behind his left breast, making it hard for her to sense Terra. Once she’s done with him, though, that will cease to be an issue.

“I know where you are,” she whispers, pleased with the way he whips over his shoulder, expecting to see a face behind him when there’s no one. 

But voices prevent her from moving. Footsteps climb uphill - two men - and Aqua billows into the shrubbery, first smoke and then nothing, just the empty space between.

“I don’t expect he’s much of a nice guy.” She recognizes this voice.

“Emperors rarely are. Unless they’re naked.” This one chuckles. 

Riku, Champion of Understanding The Darkness and of Having Enough Of His Own as he claimed on the black shores where he met Aqua, waits for a large, soft man to (casually) catch up. Riku is not tall - barely a couple of inches taller than Aqua - but he stands that way. Professional and confident. He stood that way when he fought against her, and stood the same when she won.

“Is there a story behind that?” Riku asks. She’s so close to him, just a leaf away from his shoulder, but he doesn’t notice her eyes staring up at him. He grins with the subtleness of someone who doesn’t like attention. 

The man scratches his scalp under his small hat, then rubs his fingers onto his sweeping poncho, with sandals to match. He must be a farmer. On his leash is a llama dragging a cart. 

“The sun punished our most wicked emperor.” The farmer takes this restful opportunity to sip water out of a spouted, clay pot. His smile is big and inviting, his stature enormous and big-bellied. He gestures wildly as if telling a story to children. “Set his clothes on fire every time he wore them. Or at least,” he shrugs, “made them feel that way. But the emperor wouldn’t stand down. He ruled naked in his own palace for the rest of his life.” He smiles. “But he always kept feathers in his hair. Man liked to have some class.”

“Don’t they all.” Riku rolls his eyes. “Is your emperor the type that likes to keep his clothes on?”

“Anyone with half a sane mind would.” The farmer laughs, but he doesn’t sound certain. If anything, he’s nervous and excited and naive.

“Can’t wait to find out.” Riku doesn’t sound convinced. 

“You know, I share a name with an emperor.”

“Pacha?”

“The one and only.” Pacha clicks with his tongue and that gets his llama going again. “Best emperor we’ve ever had. Brought down the price of milk. Who wouldn’t think I’m blessed with charm and good luck?”

This finally brings a genuine smirk to Riku’s face.

The men chat as they continue their way, disappearing downhill. It gives Aqua the opening to step out. 

It has to be some sort of escort mission. If a Keybearer is here, then there are wild Heartless roaming around. She’ll have to keep hers hidden. Either way, whatever Riku is doing is not her problem.

She hones in on her destination. Kicks off her feet and glides through the grove. It’s easy to catch up to Xehanort - blend in with the shadows, pass through the trees, speed up, go even faster. Her heart won’t lead her astray. With every yard, she burns with the vigor that darkness had numbed away. She heaves. She’s found him, she’ll pin him down, she’ll take him back. 

By the time she catches sight of his white hair, she snaps. She roars. Just seeing his face is a sharp reminder that no matter what happens, she has to see this through. Calling for her Keyblade, she attacks. 

He barely dodges, landing on his knees. He flashes a toothy grin like he’s baring fangs.

“You’re here,” he announces, and nearby birds scatter. “Never would I have considered myself so fascinating as to be worthy of your graceful presence.”

She scoffs and moves to strike. But he only laughs something hearty, with a boom. He floats backward into the thicket, waving his arm like he’s dismissively tossing a farewell. 

Xehanort hovers in circles behind the trees as though to shake her off. Which is stupid, really, when she could feel where he is.

But that’s what he wants, isn’t it? When she takes a moment to locate him, it leaves her open to attack - from the Guardian. 

It hovers close, blowing humid breath, muscles twitching like it’s in pain. It groans so deeply and so quietly she can only hear it as a whisper. She stabs it with her Keyblade and it lurches backward. She cartwheels away to create more distance, then stills to focus on Xehanort’s whereabouts. 

The process takes too long. The Guardian attempts to grab her. She dives, throwing herself father away. It is relentless, hurling spurple, fiery blasts. Overwhelming her. Not letting her stay still. If she’s ever going to focus, she’ll have to beat it into submission. Knocking her Keyblade into its face feels good.

But her focus has shifted.

Footsteps charge behind her. No time to react. Xehanort tackles her - strong arms around her waist - and throws her onto the ground with a grunt and a blow to the stomach. 

His hair. It’s brown. She’s face to face with plastic blue eyes and a smug, foreign grin. 

She stops breathing. Before she realizes.

“Get _off_ of me!” She knees him in the gut. He winces and grabs his side while she crawls out of his grip and starts to float away.

He growls and grabs her by the ankle, whiplashing her back onto the ground. The Guardian picks her up by the forearms, clasping them together so that she loses her grip on her Keyblade. 

Aqua shrieks and her Heartless hear the call. The ground rumbles, the birds scatter farther as a tidal wave of Shadows slither to and fro in a fury. _Help help help help._

The Guardian drops Aqua and disappears. She rubs her scalp to soothe the headache, only to find herself alone. Xehanort has gone, leaving nothing but his warmth on her skin. Straggling onto her feet, Aqua closes her eyes and follows his heart when she hears a courageous yell.

Riku catapults into the sky, a large Keyblade in hand, cutting through her Heartless right down the middle. The most vulnerable. He vanquishes one, its life force pulling and twisting and snapping Aqua in the shoulder before any identifying trace of it vanishes. 

Xehanort left her to face Riku alone.

“You’ve tricked me,” she curses. 

Her Heartless gather into a tornado, defending themselves. She summons energy from a pit deep inside her core - Darkness responds just as quickly as Light - and her heart throbs with the movement of water crackling at the touch of freeze. Sharing a tether with her, the Heartless absorb the same growth, stacking a barrier around their communion. It makes Riku’s strikes as soft as silk. She commands, “Take care of him.” 

She whisks away, deeper into the thicket until it opens up to a valley, riddled with boulders and divided by creeks. Xehanort doesn’t leave a scent but a trail of essence. His heart is beating quite rapidly now. 

Aqua doesn’t have much time until she loses her temporary upgrade, but soon she catches him in the distance, white hair back on center stage. He’s running, but too slow. She glides faster, her Keyblade ready to slam him at full velocity.

Right before she could run him over, he turns and blocks her attack with his Keyblade. They ricochet, a thunder clap booming the instant they touch. She gracefully lands on her feet. He collapses and tumbles onto his back, groaning as his Keyblade dissipates as quickly as it came. He doesn’t bother getting up. 

Good. He’s doing nothing but heaving, one hand on his shoulder as he gazes listlessly at the sky, not acknowledging her as she struts closer.

He chuckles. “Bested by scorn. I didn’t expect I’d live to see the day.”

“Get up.” 

He only lifts himself onto his elbows, fine with settling there. His eyebrow cocks, inviting her to do what she wants. “What sort of fantasy are you plotting?”

She snarls. But she has to take it easy. She can’t harm the body.

Aqua threatens his left breast with the tip of her Keyblade. Normally, this is a forbidden act. Normally.

“One where I’m drowning you,” she says, stalking the lines of his face, patiently anticipating the exact moment where he squirms. 

“How inconvenient.”

He may act unintimidated, what with the way he flicks his wrist as if her words bore him. But there’s still one truth: he ran from her. His eyes snake down her arm to the metal inches away from his skin. She presses the blunt end of her Keyblade under his chin and tilts it back up to face her, the metal digging into his windpipe.

Years of lengthy debates about matters of the heart - how it works, whether it’s born in darkness or in light, its purpose with intense emotion - have agreed on one thing: to touch a heart with a Keyblade is unspoken of. Its effect is irreversible and numerous. Creating new personalities, breaking the mind, erasing the memories, banishing the sense of self, cloning the shadow. The heart will always fight back against an act so unnatural that no Master has even tried to experiment with it.

At least not with Light. Nothing about this Xehanort is natural.

Aqua doesn’t want complications. Just a simple act of plucking his heart out of place and throwing it away to Where It Doesn’t Matter. Where the panthers can eat it. Where Kingdom Hearts can reclaim it. It doesn’t belong in Terra’s body, so it shouldn’t be difficult. Put him to sleep so he doesn’t fight back.

She’ll preserve the body in the same ocean that birthed her anew. The water will restore Terra back to (almost) normal. Darkness has miraculous methods. It gave her the choice to leave, something Light has consistently failed her with. It will keep him safe until he’s ready to talk. Maybe then, they can take something back for themselves when he’s not so different from her anymore.

She’ll have to be gentle.

“I’m taking your heart out,” she hisses. “It’s more than you deserve.”

Xehanort’s eyes carefully lock with hers as a new, knowing, self-satisfied, punchable smile inches its way to his ears.

“Whose heart?”

Her teeth grit against each other, nipping her lip. He’ll regret asking stupid questions. Biting her tongue, she focuses on what’s most important.

The heart is a proud organ. It sings with its own voice, sheet music on display as a record of a person’s hopes for the future, their fears developed by the past. She expects one of them to be silent. 

But it isn’t. 

It’s a mess. 

It’s a mess, a cannibal, a wrestle of two where one drinks breath from the other. When one pushes away, the other pulls it in. One beats and the other follows rhythmically. Words are shared, dreams are rewritten. Muscle and sinew intertwine and blend. There is no point where Xehanort ends and Terra begins. They are two. They are one. And when they both notice she’s reading them, together they shush her. To throw one away is to shred them apart. She’d have to say goodbye. 

So all Aqua does is stare at him. All he enjoys is her hesitance.

A crackle of twigs and the rustling of leaves announce Riku’s stumbling arrival, panting. When he sees them, Keybalde to heart, his eyes snap open. 

“Don’t do that!”

Riku uppercuts, knocking Aqua’s Keyblade away. He steps between them. If he thinks he’s doing the right thing, he’s stupid.

Aqua doesn’t give him the benefit of explaining herself. She can’t even speak - she gasps from his sudden appearance, and hammers away at him by instinct. Riku is quicker, his strikes are harder, a prodigy in every movement. They flurry through attacks, powering each swing with magic but neither of them back down. 

Here her Heartless come, colliding onto the ground and set to wash Riku over. He glances at them - there is that perfect opening. She swings from a direction meant to mislead him. He takes the bait. Landing a blow across his fighting arm, she throws him into a boulder. 

But Xehanort is gone. Again. 

“You made me lose him,” she mutters.

Xehanort has left this world entirely, and worse. He’s nowhere to be found. But how is that possible? She should be able to tell where he’s going, where he’s landing. Maybe he’s too far for her ability. 

“Find him,” she says to three of her Heartless: the hunter, the butcher, and the accused. 

Behind her Riku groans, holding his head. Pacha scurries into view, pushing branches off his face, and helps Riku up.

“Are those monsters going to move?” Pacha quietly asks Riku about the horde near them, waiting for her instructions.

“I don’t know. I’m fine, don’t fuss.”

“Monsters?” Aqua says, turning over her shoulder.

Riku is still shaking on his legs when she approaches, and Pacha holds his arms out in surrender. But she doesn’t attack the farmer. Instead, she pins Riku’s neck between the boulder behind him and her Keyblade, chipping minerals from the surface.

“Is that what you see when you look at me?” she calmly asks Riku. Because Pacha doesn’t know any better. Because Riku doesn’t understand what he fights. “Do you think that’s fair, after everything I’ve been through?”

Riku gapes at her. He has normal eyes, the color of turquoise. He soon wipes that look off his face. “It’s not.” At least he’s respectful. 

“Please don’t hurt him, miss,” Pacha pleads, leaning forward. Attempts to touch her shoulder with assuring intention but he’s lucky he doesn’t make contact. “We have a misunderstanding. He means no harm.”

Pacha is trying to cater to her point of view, his round brown eyes earnest and desperate. His voice is warm like tea, giant chin tense yet unassuming. She hates how terrified he is of her. Golden eyes of a monster. 

“I’ll spare him,” she whispers. “Just for you.” 

With that, she swings a dark blast that sends Riku flying off yards away, knocking him out. Pacha runs after, picking him up in his arms. He glances over his shoulder to see if she would chase them. Do not worry, Pacha, she wouldn’t. She simply doesn’t want to be bothered. 

Her chosen three have not moved from their spot though, twiddling their claws around their antennas. 

“What do you mean you can’t find him?” she asks them. 

Aqua tries again and connects with the expanse between the worlds, but he has disappeared from her radar.

She tries not to panic. She summons a portal, reaching for him among the shadowy tendrils in a network that surveilles everything within deep space. It licks many stars, many worlds, many lights, millions of them, earth and people and animals, in a void that stretches forever. All hearts beat just past the border where none can survive. She goes further, to pockets with no worlds and holes with no stars. The one heart that matters isn’t here, and isn’t anywhere, as if he stopped existing. 

“What kind of magic is this?” Darkness should not be able to cloak him this well. 

So he is nowhere in the Realm of Light or In Between. There’s one more place to check. She leaves the void, coming back to the desert where she found him the first time. Night blankets it now and blankets it empty. 

Digging her claws into the sand, Aqua sinks into black, floating down to a seabed that houses a tipping clocktower, where night doesn’t stop and her thoughts mute. Darkness watches over its own, the same creatures that hungered for her heart before now casually passing by. A Darkside acknowledges her presence with short interest, as though it’s not an intimidating giant but a child. She asks the Realm of Darkness if he’s here. He’s not. 

Aqua swims back up, breathing only when she reaches the desert.

What’s left to do now? Nothing, but wait for him to turn back on again. He’ll have to - whatever magic he’s using can’t last forever.

In this moment of quiet, Aqua crashes into one revelation: she’s tired. She’s never felt that way in the Realm of Darkness. The desire or need to sleep hasn’t occurred to her in years. At first, she avoided it out of fear that she would miss a rare chance of escape. It’s bizarre to measure how heavy her limbs have become, to feel her eyelids wither. She’s weak.

She could always go back to the Realm of Darkness and shake it off, but it’s not a bad weakness. As she walks, she takes note of how her thighs feel sore and like jelly all at once, fatigue settling beside the determination to keep functioning. The moment she rests will be _bliss_ \- the thought of it is alluring, as though sleep is a forbidden sweet. She wants a taste. This is what it feels like to be alive. 

Ahead of her is that same cave where she left Terra’s armor. It’s as good a place as any; she’ll be hard-pressed to belong somewhere else. The armor sits in the same spot, covered in dust.

“You’re dirty,” she chastises.

Sitting across from it, she wiggles into the ridges of the rockface, which stab her around the spine, and brings her knees to her chest. Her claws brush against her skin as she hugs herself, frigid. The dirt beneath is rough and stiff on her muscles, but they agree with the rest, sighing something delicious with relief. The stars here are needle pricks in the sky, like they’re farther away. They leave the desert dark, the wind howling and cold. Aqua shares the view with her Heartless, who slither into the cave and fill it up. 

Next to her, the armor sits tall. Terra wasn’t always tall, but the last few years together proved otherwise. 

But Terra was always strong. Training with him was never about beating him through brute force. A fool’s errand, really. It was about outmaneuvering him, outsmarting, outpacing. The best training she could ask for to prepare her for the worst.

Terra won at wrestling, almost unanimously. One knee hooked behind hers, and huge arms wrapped around her back, and one hand pushing her pelvis hard against the ground, and his shoulder to her face, smelling of sweat and yeast and faded sandalwood from the shower early that morning. And heat. His heat on her.

 _Give it up_ , he would say. 

_Forfeit_ , he’d continue when she wouldn’t stand down.

_Really, Aqua? You’re such a sore loser._

Maybe that was slightly true. Aqua would press a hand somewhere where his fussed shirt exposed skin - near his neck, or the small of his back - and summon ice, jolting him with the speed of a surprised cat. Still, he’d have the nerve to hold onto her despite the torture, to drag her where he landed, because he despised losing just as much. Because he liked to stay close. Because she liked it, too, and slowly he figured that out.

 _That’s cheating_. Terra’s laugh shivered, as rigid as his voice. 

What Aqua would give to hear that laugh now. She takes her tattered sleeve and wipes a layer of dust off the armor’s visor, gently so she wouldn’t knock it over. 

Terra’s (Xehanort’s) heart, their one and strongest bond, mesh together. Aqua mimics by intertwining her own fingers, red on red like bloody exposed tissue. One by one, she unlaces them, playing images of untangling threads of muscle in her mind over and over, ripping the knots that can’t be undone. When the time comes, Aqua can’t be sure she’ll have the strength to do the same to him. 

She can do it. For his sake. She can’t for his sake. 

One of her Heartless - the youngest and oldest - paws at her lap. Heartless can’t be understood like humans. Part of succumbing means to strip themselves of the experiences that mark them as an individual from all the rest. Reading their hearts usually turn up nothing, but Aqua may get a memory of a long-forgotten occupation. Flashes of what their friends sounded like. Sometimes a face. Never a name. Always a turbulent feeling.

The youngest and the oldest is a six year old, turned a thousand years ago. A blonde girl in a blue dress, looking up with curious eyes. She wants reassurance, alarmed by Aqua’s reminiscence. After all, this girl doesn’t have strong images of her past life to hold onto, so the sudden rush of feelings must be painful in the only way nostalgia could deliver. 

“It’s okay to be alone,” Aqua says, petting the Shadow. “It’s better that way. You get more resilient when you don’t have to rely on anyone.”

When you don’t have to feel disappointed. When you don’t risk betrayal. While Heartless swarm together, they can’t communicate. They don’t understand much except for hunger, until they get distracted and they forget, numbing over and leading a simple life.

It’s so much better than remembering everything, hoping someone would come for her as long as she stayed patient. 

Aqua can spare some time as she leans her head back against the stone, knuckling her skull. The Heartless cradles into her arms.

Aqua has waited for twelve years. One more night doesn’t compare.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **This chapter makes references to The Emperor's New Groove (2000).**
> 
> I commissioned Serj for an amazing piece to showcase this stage of the fic, "[Enemies](https://twitter.com/Steadyknight1/status/1285615755673899014?s=20)!" I'm just blown away by it. I only asked him for the ram horns/deer antlers, and I was specific about their expressions. The rest was all him improvising and I couldn't ask for it better, it's so beautiful. ;-; ;-; ;-;


	3. My Worst Brings Out The Best In You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First fic of 2021 and I had to give it to the dark OTP. I spent weeks insecure about this chapter, but it’s thanks to @lyssala for reading through it and assuaging my fears. This is honestly the end of... the easiest part of this fic ljgfjlgfjfklgj I’ve really got my work cut out for me. Thank you all for your patience, feels like it’s been a while! 
> 
> Title comes from Taking Back Sunday's "A Decade Under the Influence" (who remembers _this_ band???). Very appropriate for them, I would say.

Waking up is nothing like how she remembers it to be. Soreness ruptures her back, and her skin jolts as she peels off of knuckles of stone that dug in all night. She barely remembers if she dreamt. What she really can’t recall is if there’s such a thing as a refreshing morning. 

To top it all off, her ass is numb. Aqua groans when she stands up, stretching as hot gusts blow into the cave, throwing dust to her legs, caking the armor, nudging the shadows as they stir. Besides the wind rolling pebbles along, there’s no noise to enjoy in the Badlands, all the sun glaring down on bleached red sand.

The first thing she does is not breakfast (she must), nor a wash (she should), but to close her eyes, reading darkness. Maybe he woke up, too. 

He did.

He’s _here_.

Aqua shushes her Heartless. They’re squirming, reacting to the way her heart is pounding. At the mouth of the cave, Aqua surveys where she should go. The Badlands splay out with endless sunlight, no shade to cover her except for a passing dust storm. It’s not a view she’d share with anyone; it’s the worst place to sneak around. She’d be like a marker with a giant arrow, her shadow stretching to grotesque proportions depending on the way the light hits her. If she’s going to titter around this exposed, she’d better make it count. 

She starts by running then she fades away into clouds of smoke, magnetized to the nearest cool spot beneath a plateau, a stark, black slice across the dirt. Here she’ll recover and look for a different spot. As long as it heads in the same direction. 

It’s after the third resting place, a tunnel cutting through a mountain, that she notices she’s heading towards the Graveyard. Well, if she heads _west_ she’d reach it. But her gut feeling—a twinge in her nostrils—veers her slightly north. When Aqua steps out amidst a precipice, she spots a gathering of oddly skinny rock towers stretching to touch the sky. No natural force could have made them.

On each of these towers stands a cloaked figure. Different heights, different hierarchies, with hearts inexperienced, lost, angry, bored, apathetic. There’s one with a third mind. Regardless, they all reflect the image of an old man somehow, like a plague they’ve infected themselves with. 

Ah, there _he_ is, wearing black like all the rest. 

She inches closer, melting into a shadow cut off by a boulder, peeking over the edge. On the tallest tower is someone she hates to recognize. The only one without a hood. Bald. Old. Breathing with the excitement of a bully crushing dirt into another child’s hair. He’s about to land something big and Aqua knows what it is but she doesn’t care anymore. She just wants him dead for stealing.

Xehanort waves a hand and Aqua ducks back. He couldn’t have seen her. 

But when she risks a glance, most of the figures burst into a fire of purple and black, disappearing. 

Except for the only one she wants, of course.

In the end, it doesn’t matter if they knew she was there. Aqua thrusts forward, gliding over the sand, flying up parallel to one of the rock towers until she gracefully floats back on her feet at the top. 

He stands across from her, a field of what looks like ruins in the distance behind him. He takes off his hood and draws a proud smirk on his face.

“I’ve proposed they take care of you,” he says, proceeding to undress his gloves one finger at a time.

It’s a funny way of saying he asked them to get rid of her, and maybe Aqua should be nervous about it, but she tells herself that she can handle twelve nameless men. That is, until she thinks about their empty spots in this ritual circle.

Is this supposed to intimidate her? She has to hand it to him, he’s got spine. “Looks like they left you to do it yourself.”

There’s a flash—a knot at the edge of one eyebrow—of a shot of rage, like he’s about to chew her head off. Then he flashes teeth. He smiles too much.

“Then we shall begin,” he says, rolling his shoulders. “Mind a detour?”

Energy sparks at the tips of her fingers, readying a Keyblade but she stops short of summoning it. A detour? He’s not making a move. Aqua leads a staredown, watching for signs of what he’s plotting.

But he doesn’t plot. He steps backward off his pillar with that ridiculous gremlin smile as if to let himself fall. An inky doorway swirls open and swallows him whole. 

Aqua bursts across the chasm, throwing herself into the same portal. She won’t lose him this time.

She lands on a muddy, brittle pathway suspended in the air, where clouds blot the sky so there’s no horizon to see. She lands on what could have been where she first conjured her very own Rainfell. Where she slapped Terra in the face that one and only time. Where she made love to him, where she picked up her Master’s abandoned Keyblade for the first and last time—it’s all erased here, ground and packaged into a single path where even the mountains eroded to dust. It’s worse than the Badlands. It’s home. 

The castle stands in the same condition she left it in years ago: painted the color of stale, crusty shit and topped with a bright turquoise roof, like a surprise gift to give your worst enemy. Warped with upright towers, towers that jut out to the side, and towers that hang upside down, it’s disjointed and bizarre, a puzzle with mismatched pieces forced together. Which is exactly the point: let the intruder wander, let him be lost, let him forget and enjoy the oblivion. 

He has thrown away his cloak at the entrance of the castle, Terra’s armor adorning his left arm. He has his back to her but there’s a tension in his shoulders as though he’s pretending not to notice she’s behind him. 

There’s one reason, and one only, why he’d bring her here. Aqua readies the Keyblade.

“Like an animal,” he quips. She can imagine him snickering. “Always prepared to deal the first blow.”

She strikes. He dodges. She’s right—he _is_ snickering, making a show of gripping the door handle like bait asking to get caught. “Stop,” she hisses. Which is stupid. Of course he wouldn’t.

Of course he’d turn the handle. Of course he’d glance at her, tilting his head as an invitation to come inside with him. 

“You don’t have the right!” she yells.

He laughs, leaving the door open for her. 

Terra. She could lose him today, forever. If they spend hours wandering the rooms of this castle, they’d lose memories with no way to predict which ones go first. The painful? The nostalgic? Either way, there’s no such thing as Terra and Aqua holding hands if they are gone.

Aqua tackles the front door before it slams in her face. It’s heavy, resisting her at first before swaying momentum and throwing her off balance. Instead of a grand entrance hall with a proud foyer, luscious stained glass displays, mirrored marbled stairways, and a warm hello, it’s just one room. 

An empty blank room, so clean that she’s the stain, framed by polished sculptures and a rose dais she doesn’t recognize. It’s not like she had a design in mind when she transformed the castle. There’s no memory of where _this_ came from, no record of it ever written. Not even from Eraqus, who had an idea and not a clue. She takes one step; it echoes like a screech. The white on white on white glare back. The walls stand like sterilized canvases, starched for a bleed of whatever color in exchange for a few of her thoughts. They know. This isn’t home. There’s nothing here. Just him.

“Lest you forget, this was my home, too.” He smiles.

Aqua nearly spits that it isn’t, wasn’t, never will be, but that isn’t true, is it? He’s pleased with himself, leaning on the door on the opposite side with his elbow propped up as though the castle is a casual friend he’s embracing.

“Now, isn’t this exactly where you would prefer me to be?” he asks. 

“Acting like an idiot?”

“Somewhere familiar. Old family. Fond memories. A place to call your sanctuary.”

She shrugs it off. “Not much of a spectacle anymore.”

His eyebrows worm one by one. He’s lucky he has Terra’s face, otherwise she’d shave them. “But a spectacle worth revisiting.”

“There’s nothing left,” she snaps. “This place is empty.”

He strokes a finger on the door, a gesture that is halfway between _Is that so?_ and _Not so fast._ “Except one room.”

Hunger churns in his eyes and she’s uncomfortable with the way he’s looking at her, like he’s about to drag her by her ankles. 

“Don’t bother asking. It’s not like you’d ever see it,” she says.

His nostrils flare, surveying disgust as he scans the room from floor to ceiling. There’s a ferocity there, an ignition of something ready to deteriorate. Aqua settles for what’s coming, claws extending as they fasten her Keyblade. If she tears flesh today, so be it. It will only be a little. 

How he gets himself to smirk the next moment is a secret she’d have to learn. “Then a bargain. The Chamber of Waking, and I won’t harm him.”

Aqua grunts and cuts an arc through the air with her Keyblade, firing a sphere of energy dark enough to absorb light. He blocks it with a wave of his hand and he chuckles like there’s not a day worth living if you’re not close to dying. 

Summoning his giant Keyblade, he swings back, rupturing the tile beneath him as it cracks and crumbles towards her. She dodges, but an explosion bursts from beneath and knocks her off balance. As she turns over to stand up, he’s already looming over her. 

They’re in a tight space, the walls knitting together and forcing them to take intimate strikes and forgo the fancy spells. Tinks and shears and blasts echo as though one hit is actually three, the sound of their blades bashing against each other. Her Heartless can’t form a congregation here. He doesn’t bother with his Guardian either, too cumbersome and clunky to maneuver inside.

He’s slower than her, but the close proximity means she’s running out of space to dodge his wide reach. Every hit he throws is the force of a boulder destroying a mountain as it avalanches, testing her balance, stealing the seconds that she needs to steady herself and parry the next. 

She readies a spell. He blows the tile beneath them, an earthquake tripping her feet.

Every curse she scrambles with—a Sleep, Confusion, anything to throw him off—does nothing, as though he’s feasting on her efforts. She should’ve known better.

It’s fine. Aqua’s tough without her Heartless, tough without needing to trust anyone but herself. Glowing with an icy hotness that burns like frozen snow on exposed skin, she’s about to multiply—

“You will not,” he says.

He pummels into her like a canon, his armored hand around her throat as she collides back onto the door behind her. Not the front door, no—she’s foolish and distracted enough not to notice that he’s been circling her in this small, square room. He’s pinning her against the other, the one that would lead to Ven but wouldn’t. It creaks under the weight of her body and the pressure of his strength.

“I could lock you up in this purgatory,” he whispers, his breath brushing her cheek, her nose, her lips. Smiling. “Or you could take me to him.”

Aqua pants, her fingers scratching the surface of the door. The thought of being left behind—

Like choked breath, she stops the moment she sees the proud expression on his face. 

It’s a bluff.

Calm down. He wants to scare her. It’s a bluff. 

He _needs_ her to get inside regardless, even if he doesn’t know everything. That you need the Master’s Defender at all is a secret only shared with those who wield it. He wouldn’t know. Despite how desperately she wants to dig her way out, Aqua keeps her chin high, staring him down. She scoffs through her nose. 

His eyes twinkle as he reads her. Aqua tries not to lead him on with any assumptions. Keep it stoic.

But there’s something about the way she’s doing it that’s betraying her. She’s failing with every second that he blinks. “Ah,” he cooes, “you do not have the means—”

Claws into flesh—she pierces his wrist, right through the leather in between the metal, and he yelps. Pulls off of her. She closes the gap with black fire and cold fingers and the intent to rip an iceberg in half. He has his arms over his head, his Keyblade forgotten as he pathetically defends himself against a rabid monster flailing at him.

All she sees is the opportunity to take back. Priming a sharp hand over his face (and at _such_ the perfect angle to peel it off his skull), she lunges forward and pins him under her. Reaches to his waist. Pulls the orange Wayfinder out of his pocket.

He yells and throws her off of him. His pupils shrink to nothing, his Keyblade burning with an unnatural color. He’s clutching his chest as though his heart is pounding too quickly and is about to plop dead. Aqua is on her knees, the Wayfinder’s chain threaded around her red knuckles.

 _Move_. She needs to move while he towers over her, a trickle of drool seeping from his lips, his white hair messy. He’s manic, searching her and searching the floor and searching the walls, moaning. Aqua has to move. Aqua sits frozen. 

Has he forgotten where he is? 

Is this… 

She whispers his name, barely audible.

For a moment, he stares past her. He growls and throws himself on her, the back of her head hitting the floor. Pupils so small his eyes are golden orbs, two little false lights in the dark, tempting you to go deeper into the fog where a monster waits. Like the Guardian’s, watching her take her last breath underwater. As though he knows no weapons, or no magic, he squeezes a fist around her hand, his fingers prying the Wayfinder out of hers with such strength that he could amputate them. Aqua chooses her fingers and lets go. 

Once he has it back in his possession, he stumbles off of her, heaving and hunched over. With the Wayfinder to his chest, his pupils slowly grow back. Brows knitted, lips quivering, eyes lost. That’s not a face Xehanort would make. 

Then he runs. He bolts down the terrace, disappearing in a cloud of smoke, leaving Aqua on the floor, leaving the doors open. Terra’s body is traveling like a shooting star. She can feel it propel somewhere in the far sky, where the stars hover above the clouds. She could follow him, fight more and more and more until she drags him to the ocean kicking and screaming and losing.

But it aches.

But she’s tired. She’s fought, and they’ve matched the same games over and over, with nothing to show for them except sore throats and scratched cheeks and defeated bodies slumped over floors like they weren’t dignified Keyblade wielders but wronged children.

It aches. It _aches_ more than anything the Realm of Darkness threw at her, as though a hollow has cracked inside, collapsing her lungs into a pit of gravity and threatening to take the rest. If this is how it feels to be human again, why bother going back? What good is it to pretend that fate is kind and hearts are strong and one day he’ll realize what just happened and wake up with his blue eyes?

Instead, she should try to find Ven on her own, without her Master’s Defender. Her heart will lead the way, let her keep her memories. Or she’d lose it all, walking in circles, be the ghost that haunts this castle and create a legend that will keep her name immortal. It’s a stupid idea.

Aqua rolls over to her side, the tile underneath jutting into her hips and ribs. The doors he left open frame the outside, a dry and empty nightmare. She misses the sound of pattering, the smell of moisture, the promise of green every year. The Land of Departure certainly had its dreary days when the clouds were thick, but the light never dimmed. It would rain and all would be clear, the raindrops bulbous as they pummeled and exploded into miniature puddles.

Maybe the reason why the dirt is so rancid here is because rain never fell on Castle Oblivion. If she and Terra were caught under an onslaught, they’d continue to par. Water never stopped her flow and he couldn’t be bothered to slow down. 

There was one obnoxious day when Terra grabbed her elbow and dragged her to the front porch, just under the awning in an effort to keep dry but it was futile—they were still pricked by frigid droplets. Beneath the rain, his blue eyes were less noticeable. His dark hair weighed heavy but it was thick enough to perk up if with less gusto. He smirked at her, and she knew what it meant.

She smacked his arm while he glanced through the entrance as he watched for signs of someone coming. If the Master, they’d be in trouble. If Ven, they’d have to suffer relentless teasing, and maybe pay off his blackmail. 

When Terra was sure no one would see them, he went for it in spite of her whispered giggles and hushes. A warmth on his lips that burned on hers when the rest of her was cold, drenched, and shivering. 

_I wanted to know what you taste like in the rain._

He had tasted like water, a spring from the mountain.

She was close to Terra today. She’s sure of it. 

Tied to her sashes is her blue Waydfinder in immaculate condition, glass stronger than metal with a vibrance that’s foreign to her. 

It sits in her claw, blood red framing its brilliant shine. She’s done so well not to stare at it every time she felt nostalgic, but here she is now: a damn mess, with scales that cover skin, rough and pointed at the tips. Cold with layers of calloused leather that never molts unless she tears it off, building on top of her knuckles that folds as she retracts her claws, like there’s something slithering beneath. Her hands are now beyond repair, so thick that she’s unable to feel what she touches. 

_I’m ugly_ , she realizes, keeping her claws contracted so they don’t scratch the surface of her Wayfinder. It’s still pretty. 

Dull stars float down to the entrance of the castle. Not stars, but a plethora of orbs, pairs of them as her Heartless pile on top of each other and funnel inside, squirming themselves free. It would have been easier for them to make a line. They’re silly, sometimes. 

Something small butts its head into her—the six-year-old, scratching the tile as it makes space up against her belly. It lets her wrap her arm around it. Another Heartless nuzzles up to her chin. One sits at the crown of her head, and another nestles at the small of her back. More tack on, forming a seabed to let her rest. 

It would’ve been lonely otherwise. The night seems flippant now, impatient for the sun to come up in a world where it can’t shine. 

**Author's Note:**

> I need to thank my two betas: to [Serj](https://twitter.com/Steadyknight1), who is my sharper edge and will push me to my limits. 
> 
> And to my dear [Lyssala](https://twitter.com/Lyssalalaa) [[AO3](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lyssala/pseuds/Lyssala)] who is my soft embrace and will keep me hopeful. Together, they balance this piece and without them, I would not have the courage to post this. Thank you both so much for your insight, encouragement, and critiques. ;-; ;-; ;-; 
> 
> You can yell at me at [Twitter](https://twitter.com/mimiplaysgames1) or on [Tumblr](https://mimiplaysgames.tumblr.com/).
> 
> I want to hear what you guys think!! Please let me know what you're hoping to see, your theories, predictions. This is brand new territory for me, and I'm going into it completely blind. <3


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